VANCOUVER – The holiday season is about spending quality time with those closest to us – gathering for family dinners, drinking hot chocolate, and expressing our gratitude for what we have. It’s a time for reflection and generosity. But when you’re a kid, it doesn’t hurt to also receive a gift or two to show off to your friends come the new school year.

For some families, providing gifts for their children doesn’t come easy, and it can fall to the wayside in favour of more necessary expenditures. Enter Goodwill Lager, a beer brewed and designed in collaboration between Red Truck Beer Company and Donnelly Group. They’ve brewed 10,000 cans, and one dollar from each can purchased at any Donnelly location will go towards a toy drive held on December 3.

“It started as a bunch of managers just grabbing toys and donating them to kids,” says Donnelly Group Director of Marketing Damon Holowchak. “Now, it’s evolved to include each member of our staff, which is over 1,000 people. We give them $50 Toys ‘R’ Us gift cards and they purchase an unwrapped toy that becomes their entrance to our Christmas party. The Salvation Army comes and picks them up, they fill wish lists the best they can, and those toys are distributed to children that might not normally have toys at all. We’re over a million bucks in toys given away.”

Though the toy drive has been held for 18 years now, Donnelly Group has never quite figured out a way to engage the public in their initiative. That all changes this year with the introduction of Goodwill Lager. At each of their venues on both the east and west coasts, tall cans of the beer will be added to menus from November 1 until December 3.

“We didn’t ever include the public as well as we could in what we thought was a really good initiative, because it was mostly an internal party for staff,” says Holowchak. “We always wanted to get our guests involved, and this year we found a way that we can all talk about the toy drive and allow them to get involved in a pretty simple way. We’re encouraging all of our customers to come in and drink a beer – which they’re probably going to do anyway with us – but this way, you can give some money for toys for kids. Hopefully, with a buck each, at least $10,000 will be donated in addition [to the $50 per staff member] for more toys.”

You can find Goodwill Lager at any Donnelly Group venue from November 1 to December 3.

By Graeme Wiggins

Photo by Devin Araujo

Vancouver, over the years, has seen a lot of alcohol-related festivals come and go. At 23 years and running, the Hopscotch Festival remains stalwart. It’s a multi-day festival that showcases the best whiskey, spirits, and beer through tasting events and workshops that culminate in a three-day event at the PNE Forum featuring live music, an onsite liquor store, and food.

With such a lengthy and storied history, Hopscotch has taken feedback and improved the festival year after year. Last year there was a big overhaul to help separate the beers from the spirits so as to make things clearer for guests. Executive producer of the festival, Adam Bloch, details the biggest change this year: “This year we’re bringing in some amazing restaurants to improve our food quality and food showcase. We always listen to feedback and it’s become very obvious that people are eating dinner. Everything at this thing has to be amazing, so if dinner in the conscious or subconscious of the guest is an integral part of completing an awesome night we really want to focus on that.”

Aside from the improvements the organizers have made, the industry itself – especially locally – has changed a lot in a fairly short time, bringing new diversity of products to the event.

“Over the last 10 years, the industry has added so many more options in whiskeys, in spirits, in craft beer,” says Bloch. “Now you see these BC distilleries starting to produce spirits that when they first opened they couldn’t produce. I’m hearing about Canadian rums!”

Bloch has some important advice for those new to the festival, to make sure they maximize their enjoyment. “First and foremost, it is based around alcohol so safety is always a number one priority. So, anything to do with safety would be my first tip. That would include don’t drive there. If you do and you happen to drink make sure that you leave your car there because you can leave your car there overnight. Don’t drive, make sure you take a taxi home or public transportation.”

Another piece of advice he has is perhaps less obvious, but is also safety related: “There’s no rush. People have four hours to taste. Eat. Drink water, which will be onsite. Have a snack. There’s no reason to just pound. Our whole thing about this festival is that it’s not a reason to get drunk. We don’t want anyone who’s just looking to get hammered. There are lots of liquor stores – buy a bottle and stay home.”

Bloch’s key point is to use the festival as a resource. That’s what it’s for.

“This is centered around tasting, so come to this event to taste, to learn, to sample. You don’t just have a bartender behind the booth, you have someone whose entire professional life is dedicated to knowing and talking about this product. Take advantage of that, because you have this world of wealth at the other side of the table. Take it in.”

By Karina Espinosa

Artwork by Desireé Patterson

VANCOVUER – Usually, viewers can only see the work that comes out of an artist’s studio. Stripped of their context, these objects can seem nebulous and inaccessible to the casual onlooker. But the Eastside Culture Crawl opens up those intimate workspaces and invites people to take a look inside.

The Eastside Culture Crawl is an annual, four-day visual arts festival that aims to encourage active engagement with artists and their work in East Vancouver. Now in its 22nd year, the Crawl is expected to draw 35,000 art buffs, patrons, and novices to experience the variety of arts that the community has to offer. Esther Rausenberg, this year’s Executive Director and one of the founders of the Crawl, ruminates on the progress that the Crawl has made since it first launched.

“The growth has been pretty exceptional, both in terms of artists participating and public attendance,” she says. “But most of all I’m always amazed and impressed with the different directions these artists are going.”

Rausenberg is quick to note that a majority of the art presented for this edition is brand new work from the artists. The artists are constantly innovating, which is what makes the Crawl worth visiting each year. She adds: “We’ve included a lot of workshops and demonstrations to further entice the public to get a better understanding of how the art is created, because that’s what this is about – the exploration and curiosity of the artist’s process.”

But there is a darker undercurrent to this year’s celebration. Like many denizens in this increasingly high-priced city, artists have fallen victim to rapid gentrification and struggle to preserve their studio spaces. One of the Crawl’s founding buildings, the historic Glass Onion, is set for redevelopment in December.

“Pretty much all of the artists have been evicted from there. It’s sad, because for this Culture Crawl, there’s only one artist [from that studio],” says Rausenberg. “We’ve lost one of our founding buildings that had anywhere from 14-20 artists at a time. What it’s replaced with, even if there’s an opportunity for artistic production, will certainly not be affordable.”

An established photo-based artist herself, Rausenberg is familiar with the necessity of art in people’s lives, and she fondly recalls instances from past Crawls when viewers responded emotionally to the artwork (“Art really does connect with parts of you that sometimes you’re not aware of”). For Rausenberg, those honest connections make the Eastside community so special. “In true East End fashion, I think that there’s no B.S.,” she laughs. “There’s no pretense. It’s that integrity and honesty and that sense of community that draws people to the area and to the Culture Crawl.”

The Culture Crawl allows artists to share their tools, methods and backstories that are often obscured from public view. Unlike a gallery or a museum, walking into an artist’s studio reveals something personal about the artistic process. Having that first-hand knowledge makes it possible for viewers to perceive the work in a different way.

“When you’re opening up your own space, you’re really exposing yourself and saying to the public, ‘Here’s who I am and here’s what I do.’ People really respond to that level of vulnerability – I think that they need and want that,” Rausenberg affirms. “In a way, it’s what they’re looking for and that’s why they keep connecting to this event time and time again.”

]]>http://beatroute.ca/2018/11/11/east-side-culture-crawl-takes-look-inside-souls-local-artists/feed/0Kitty Nights’ The Last Meow Marks the End of an Era in Canadian Burlesquehttp://beatroute.ca/2018/11/05/kitty-nights-last-meow-marks-end-era-canadian-burlesque/
http://beatroute.ca/2018/11/05/kitty-nights-last-meow-marks-end-era-canadian-burlesque/#respondMon, 05 Nov 2018 23:24:27 +0000http://beatroute.ca/?p=44862

by Mia Glanz VANCOUVER – Like many good things in life, the reigning burlesque night in Vancouver, Kitty Nights, began...

by Mia Glanz

Photo by TD Images

VANCOUVER – Like many good things in life, the reigning burlesque night in Vancouver, Kitty Nights, began as an implant from New York City. It was 2007 and Burgundy Brixx and the Purrfessor had had enough of George Bush, so they made the decision to seek refuge north of the border.

“Seems quaint now,” the Purrfessor laughs. In New York, Burgundy had been a long time performer, loving the “mishmash” of the burlesque scene: elegant, dedicated clubs, as well as dive bars where you never knew who you would see. It was “a really wild, crazy place,” she says.

For Burgundy, the beauty of New York burlesque was the spontaneous nature of booking and performing. “Some of the top names in burlesque would be in this little hole in the wall and you paid five dollars to get in.”

This was the attitude Kitty Nights brought to the Canadian scene. At the time, burlesque in Vancouver was members only. You belonged to a troupe and performed with the troupe. Burgundy transplanted the name of the night that she ran in New York as well as its ethos when she founded Kitty Nights in Vancouver.

“You don’t have to be in a troupe. If you do burlesque let us know, we’ll see if we can put you on our stage.”

According to Burgundy, burlesque has always been an anti-establishment art form. The tradition began in the 1800s in Britain. “They were female-run, femal- cast productions that were satires of operas and of Shakespeare and of classical high-brow theatre,” says Burgundy. Male parts were played by women. At the time women weren’t on stage, and they weren’t revealing a lick of skin in society. It was all about poking fun at the upper classes, an act of political activism to say “this is me and my body and it’s hilarious.”

But of course, in the 1800s, showing the body meant maybe an ankle was revealed under the hem of the toga of the woman playing the part of a Roman. What defined burlesque then was the comedy, the irreverent tone, and the gender of the performer rather than nakedness. It wasn’t until Gypsy Rose Lee in the 1930s that strip tease became part of burlesque. Legend has it that after Lee, the Godmother of Burlesque, had finished singing a bawdy song on stage, thinking the curtains were up, she began to take off the cuff and collar from her costume. These accoutrements were white and between acts were removed to keep clean. This particular night, the curtains did not go down, and the audience thought Gypsy was taking her clothes off, and began hooting and hollering wildly.

“Her boss said, ‘Whatever you did, do that every night.’ So she started making it into a tease,” adds Burgundy.

“[It’s about] trying to get a rise out of your audience,” quips Burgundy. “Gypsy Rose Lee would talk about current events while she was taking her clothes off. Everyone knows that you’re going to be naked by the end of the show – it’s the story you tell, how you get from here to there.”

According to Burgundy, the 1970s were “when the patriarchy completely took over, and they didn’t want any of the stories. They just wanted the nakedness… that’s when burlesque died.”
Which brings us to New York City in the 1990s, when the club kids and the comedians got together to revive this forgotten art. Soon after, Kitty Nights was born and made its way to Canada. It has been a weekly fixture of Vancouver nightlife for 10 years, winning numerous accolades, including four golden plates, and even helping Burgundy and the Purrfessor win the fight for Canadian residency. This November, the infamous event will have its “Last Meow” at the Rio Theatre to mark its tenth anniversary, as well as the exit of Burgundy Brixx and the Purrfessor from the burlesque stage.

The details of the performance will be a surprise. In true New York style, the “top secret super celebrity international guests” won’t be revealed beforehand, making it a huge thrill for the audience when they emerge from backstage on the big night. Maybe Burgundy Brixx will pull out one or two of her signature numbers: “The Brickhouse,” because she sure loves funk, or “Cinnamon Buns” with the assless dress.

By Jeevin Johal

VANCOUVER – A samurai without his sword is no different from a chef without his knife. The relationship forged between steel and the one who wields it is a natural romance, and although both individuals are intelligent and adaptable in the face of adversity, an extreme vulnerability exists without the possession of a sharp blade.

Kevin Kent, owner and president of Vancouver’s Japanese knife shop Knifewear, knows this well and has devoted his life to showing both chefs and home cooks alike what power lies in a handmade Japanese knife, despite initially being a skeptic himself.

“In 1999, I was working in London, England and I found a booth with this guy selling a bunch of Japanese knives, and I said to the man with confidence: ‘Look, I’m a chef. I keep my knives razor sharp,’” explains a slightly embarrassed Kent. “I grabbed his knife and gave it a big windup to slice through a tomato and it blazed through and stuck in the cutting board! I fell in love.”

Kent quickly developed an insatiable lust for all things metallic, collecting knives and selling them to friends when he returned back to Canada.

“I used to be like that weed dealer in college who sold weed to [smoke it],” admits Kent. “My idea was to sell a few knives to buy more so I could open a restaurant and it got out of control.”

The restaurant idea was quickly abandoned once Kent saw how lucrative his business model was becoming, and now with four stores across Canada, Kent has decided to chronicle the teachings bestowed upon him through his frequent journeys to Japan in an aptly titled new book, The Knifenerd Guide to Japanese Knives.

“Other books focus either on how to sharpen knives or the real nuts and bolts of how to use a knife,” says Kent. “Cool, but we wanted to focus on the blacksmiths and the craftsmen who make them.”

It takes much time, strength, and discipline to become a samurai or a chef, and as comfortable as Kent is with a knife in his hands, he openly admits he’s only just begun his training in the ways of the almighty pen.

“I’m a burnt-out chef. I don’t fancy myself a writer, and I wasn’t optimistic or particularly confident when I started,” he confesses. “But I think what we’ve turned out is a book I really love.”

The book launch for A Knifenerd Guide to Japanese Knives takes place at Knifewear (Main St. location) on November 7.

By Mathew Wilkins

Thierry Pécou

VANCOUVER – Post-classical, neoclassical, neoromantic, electroacoustic… these are just a few words to describe types of music even our most seasoned concert-going readership may have a hard time defining. Yet they are also the sonic bread and butter of Music on Main’s annual Modulus Festival, a five-day showcase of the world’s best in contemporary classical music. Aimed at providing diverse and accessible programming to the city, this festival is the perfect opportunity for those of us looking to expand our sonic palate.

“Modulus is full of opportunities to get in a room with people from around the world and hear things that you don’t normally get to hear in your own community,” says Dave Pay, founder of Music on Main and Artistic Director for the festival.

According to Pay, Modulus’ programming is absolutely brimming with the unconventional; composers, conductors, and performers from far and wide have been specially selected for this year’s festival to show Vancouver citizens how “composers are seeing and hearing the world.” Included in the programming are artists like British composer and vocalist Laura Bowler, whose piece explores online political activism through lyricism, composition, and mixed media. Others, like French composer Thierry Pécou, have written works for the show that, through their music, provide refuge from rapid and invasive technological progress.

“These artists are of the world,” explains Pay of this year’s selections. “And they’re creating works that are of the world and relevant to all of us. And that’s something that I think people don’t expect with new music, or contemporary classical, or whatever they’re calling it.”

This year’s music, as a result, is highly varied. Some pieces explore what Pay calls “the fallibility of technology.” Other performances focus on the audience’s visceral reaction to sound. Yet words obviously fail when trying to describe the myriad compositions that will be at this year’s Modulus. The best option, dear readers, is obviously to attend… and with ticket prices sitting at a comfortable maximum of $29, this opportunity is a hard one for the sonically curious to pass up. Not convinced? Try checking out some of the free Modulus events to whet your aural appetite.

”We want all the shows to be accessible because we know that sharing art and experiencing art together builds a stronger community,” explains Pay, before artfully capping off the interview with something we can all agree on:

“We all end up caring more for each other when we listen together.”

Modulus Festival runs from November 2-6 at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, CBC Studio 700, and The Post at 750.

But there’s another reason to go to see live theatre. Below is a selection of local playwrights and companies doing some awesome stuff this month, from creatively incorporating multimedia in new ways, to gender bending older stories. Avengers 27 (or whatever’s playing now — it’s hard to keep track) can wait. It’s time for something different.

Monsterkill 5: Remonsterkilled (Or, We Were the Empty Set)Havana Theatre, Oct. 30-Nov. 3
With the world so divided right now, it’s nice to take a break from people bashing each other up to watch other people bash each other up. In an homage to the whack-em-up video game à la Super Smash Bros., we follow the exploits of a group of avatars in a video game where they are manipulated into senselessly fighting each other by a couple of unseen voices. This isn’t just Ready Player One nostalgic whimsy, though. In his play, writer-director Matt Horrigan alludes to the uglier sides of video gaming, specifically the excessive violence of “militainment,” and the right-wing subcultures that are thriving online.

Ultimately, the players in Monsterkill

“don’t struggle to escape the game,” Horrigan says. “They struggle with why they’re there.” Eventually, they reach a point where “they’re no longer able to answer that question.”

Empire of the SonGateway Theatre Nov. 8-17
When Tetsuro Shigematsu first debuted his one-man show at The Cultch a few years back, Vancouver took notice. In it, he fiddled with toys, played recorded conversations between himself and his father, and employed the use of a camera to paint an intimate portrait of his father, who had only just passed before the first performance. Colin Thomas, still at The Georgia Straight, called it “exquisite.”

Since then, Shigematsu has taken Empire all over Canada. Time, nevertheless, has not made the piece stale. “Because the text is so much in my body, I’m at a point where when I’m onstage, if I take a breath, I genuinely do not know what I’m about to say until I begin to talk,” he says. “It’s as if the lines of the play are occurring to me for the first time. Sometimes this show just hits me and I’m knocked over.”

See this one while you can, folks. Once it wraps here, Shigematsu takes “=Empire abroad. It ain’t coming back.

The Enemy

Photo by Pedro Meza

Firehall Arts Centre, Nov. 10-Dec. 1
In case you didn’t hear, the United Nations came out with a climate report in October essentially saying that humanity is screwed. (We’re not panicking, you’re panicking.)
As if on cue, Firehall is mounting a production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Enemy of the People” this month. The play, written over one hundred years ago, depicts the timeless-yet-quite-timely battle between the environment and the economy. In it, we follow Dr. Stockmann, a scientist who raises concerns over the safety of a community’s water. The townspeople, whose income is dependent upon the local baths, don’t take too kindly to their livelihoods being threatened. For this contemporary take, Firehall has added another dimension by making Dr. Stockmann a woman. We can only assume that her gender will make everything easier for her, right?

If any of this is giving you existential angst, there’s always the option to binge watch cat videos. Honestly, we might just go do that.

By Lauren Donnelly

Photo by Zee Khan

VANCOUVER – Pretty little birds harass diners on the Vancouver Art Gallery’s cafe patio. They’re starlings. Perched on empty chairs, they tilt their heads, begging for food. They’re here because in the 1890s a group of Shakespeare enthusiasts released starlings in New York’s Central Park. The North American landscape agreed with them, and they eventually spread to B.C. They compete with several native species for nesting space and food. Since they moved in, woodpecker, martin and bluebird populations have declined. They’re an invasive alien species, and true to eurocentric form, they’re now invading the art gallery patio. One aggressive starling flaps its wings, interrupting artist Dana Claxton mid-sentence. She acknowledges the imported bird. “They’re bossy things, although they’re pretty,” she says. “You could say the same thing about colonialism, right?”

Image by Dana Claxton

From the mid-1990s to today, Hunkpapa Lakota artist Dana Claxton’s work has examined and challenged colonialism. Its footprint is wide and deep in Canada, and Claxton is skilled at recognizing its impacts. Using performance art, video installations, text-based work and photography, she explores the intersections of colonial ideology, indigeneity, beauty, identity, history, culture and spirituality. A survey exhibition of the Vancouver-based artist’s work from the last 28 years is now on display at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The exhibition is called Fringing the Cube. “The cube” is artist Brian O’Doherty’s theoretical analysis of the gallery space as a white cube. The fringe, Claxton explains, is a foundational part of Sioux plains aesthetics. It’s like a living thing. “A lot of the plains dances are based on the relationship with the natural world,” she says. “The grass dances emulate the wild prairie grass, the wild chicken dance, the crow hop, they all have those relationships and so there’s certain ways that you move your fringe for certain reasons.” Through Indigenous aesthetics, the sterile, intimidating, western gallery space aesthetic comes alive with the landscape it’s built on.

Image by Dana Claxton

Landscapes have had a formative role in Claxton’s work. At five-years-old she longed to be a filmmaker, and growing up in Moose Jaw, the sky might have had something to do with it. “That sky,” she says. “It’s like the largest screen in the world.” Living in Vancouver she misses the thunder, and the wind of the prairies. The marriage of sound, image and music intrigues her. She’s collaborated with local musicians including Lil’wat Nation composer Russell Wallace and Coast Salish hip-hop artist Ostwelve (Ronnie Dean Harris). Most recently, she’s worked with her nephew Mitchell Claxton, he’s a DJ and EDM producer based in Alberta. She says as a first generation MuchMusic viewer, the aesthetics of music videos have influenced her work. When she’s working, music helps her conjure things up. Her playlist includes a range of genres from peyote to rap, hip-hop to Chopin –– whose compositions can make her cry –– to EDM. She’s not a hundred per cent sure of where the music genre boundaries begin and end, but on the weekend she saw Diplo perform. Her review? He was incredible.

Image by Dana Claxton

When she moved to Vancouver in the early ’80s the punk scene was still exploding. Her boyfriend was a drummer in a punk band, and going to his gigs introduced her to a whole different world. “I got thrust into the art scene and observed it for a long time,” she says. “Because art has a relationship to class and privilege, it’s mysterious.” Then she took a job working at the Helen Pitt Gallery. And that changed everything.

The Pitt was an artist-run centre. Artist-run centres first cropped up in the ’60s as a response to the lack of works by local artists in public art galleries. “That was how I started out,” says Claxton. She calls herself a late-bloomer in Vancouver’s art scene, “wanting to think about how to have different voices within art and not just the west. ‘Cause the west doesn’t just own art.”

Image by Dana Claxton

Ownership is a powerful theme in Claxton’s work. For too long, Indigenous representation has been co-opted by colonialism. Just watch an episode of APTN’s series First Contact and you’ll hear the sort of ugly stereotypes that the mainstream media has used to represent Indigenous cultures. The docu-series challenges perceptions of mostly-caucasian Canadians by bringing them to Indigenous communities. Claxton says that any kind of conversation is good if it brings people together. Colonialism has caused a cultural distancing with systems like residential schools and reservations that kept people apart. “Put people on a plot of land and build a barrier around it and then they become scary,” she says. That fear is part of our beautiful country’s ugly, brutal history.

Image by Dana Claxton

“I heard someone say the other day, post-reconciliation,” she says. “And I thought post-reconciliation already? People don’t know. They just don’t know, and education is implicated in that not knowing.” As an educator at the University of British Columbia’s Visual Arts program, Claxton recognizes that reconciliation is a fraught process that many people still don’t understand. Through teaching, she’s realized that many of her students don’t know about Canadian realities. Not knowing means there’s a risk of history repeating itself. For years her art has unpacked, demystified and debunked Indigenous representation in art and pop culture, and offered another perspective. She doesn’t create to educate, but her art is intuitive, and Canada’s racist history has impacted her and her family. “It impacted my own psyche and who I am as a Lakota Canadian woman,” she says. “That interests me.” Pursuing that interest spurs her creativity.

Her photographic work is bold and impactful. In Headdress-Jeneen (2018), artist Jeneen Frei Njootli sits dressed in black, bedecked in beadwork –– from bracelets, to a pink beaded ball cap, to a moccasin pressed against her chest. Her face is obscured. We can’t see her and we can’t quite tell if she can see us. It’s part of a series inspired by the phenomenon of Indigenous women wearing their beadwork only to receive unwanted touch. “I hear that story over and over,” Claxton says. “Why people think they can reach out and touch Indigenous things on somebody’s body is remarkable. There’s something up there in terms of privilege, I think.” Headdress, the first piece in the series, shows a woman whose face is hidden by beadwork from Claxton’s own personal collection. After that she asked others to bring in their collections to be photographed. Claxton said she knew Jeneen’s image would be powerful. “Even to shoot that photo, it became this heightened experience,” Claxton says. “Those things have their own energy, their own manna, and they’re made by people in her community and her family so that whole thing was vibrating, it was alive.”

Far from frivolous, aesthetics are powerful. The Canadian government recognized that power when it created the Indian Act. The Act forbade Indigenous people from wearing their regalia, practicing their traditions, and speaking their own languages. Claxton is still floored when she thinks about how Indigenous cultures were criminalized. She works with Indigenous aesthetics because they’re beautiful. She finds beauty, like art, is everywhere. But she insists it needs to be reframed outside of judgement, class, and privilege. “You just have to reclaim all this stuff and own it yourself and have your own interpretation,” she says. “There’s not just one definition or analysis of beauty. That’d be crazy!”

Canada’s beauty belies an ugly past. A country of peace and liberty that has developed at the expense of suppressing Indigenous people and extracting their land. It’s a dynamic contrast symbolized by the beautiful sleek starlings on the Art Gallery patio. Claxton’s conscious awareness makes her art so powerful. She observes everything, really sees things, and then turns those observations into art. Art that has the potential to open people’s hearts and minds.

“First of all the image is in your mind, then you create it in the studio, then it goes into the public,” she says. “Into the cube –– the gallery –– and then the life that it has after that becomes a shared experience. The viewer has an experience with it and they take that experience and tell somebody at work. That’s the spirit of art, of how it exists. It’s really generous.”

When you think of it that way you can see why imperialists found Indigenous art so threatening, and why the artist’s autonomy is so important.

As her first survey exhibition approaches, Claxton is understandably reflective. Surveying what she’s been up to all these years has been a remarkable experience for her. “At the end it’s a relief,” she says. “But at the moment it’s scary, daunting and uplifting.” She laughs. “So I think those are all good things.” As for Canada’s odds of reconciliation, Claxton’s optimistic that it can happen with a shift of consciousness.

“It will all work itself clean,” she says. “It’ll all work itself clean, but it’s going to take awhile yet.”

Dana Claxton: Fringing the Cube is on view at the Vancouver Art Gallery October 27, 2018 to February 3, 2019. A catalogue of her work co-published by Figure 1 Publishing & The Vancouver Art Gallery is available for purchase online and at the Gallery Gift Shop.

]]>http://beatroute.ca/2018/11/02/dana-claxton-flips-colonial-script/feed/0Cannabis legalization in British Columbia: What You Should Knowhttp://beatroute.ca/2018/11/01/cannabis-legalization-british-columbia-know/
http://beatroute.ca/2018/11/01/cannabis-legalization-british-columbia-know/#respondThu, 01 Nov 2018 21:16:54 +0000http://beatroute.ca/?p=44839

By Jamila Pomeroy On October 17, Canada became the second country in the world to fully legalize cannabis, second to...

By Jamila Pomeroy

Photo by Ryan Walter Wagner

On October 17, Canada became the second country in the world to fully legalize cannabis, second to Uruguay. During the first 24 hours of legalization, B.C’s online legal government cannabis sales came in at around 10,000 individual sales, and about 100,000 individual sales at the Ontario online legal government cannabis store. While the province is roughly three-times the size of B.C. in population, our sales are still significantly lower than Ontario, when broken down to a population size more comparable to B.C.; if Ontario were to have a similar population as us, their average online sales would have come in at around at over 30,000, three-times more than B.C. The online sales have since dropped to about 8,700 a week and have been projected to continue to drop. It’s hard to say at this point whether the low sales are due to the province’s allegiance to the grey-zone cannabis infrastructure that was in place prior to legalization, or to the talked about inferior government cannabis: perhaps British Columbians have been spoiled living in Canada’s Amsterdam.

Regardless of low sales there seems to be a slightly more noticeable essence of the green stuff in the Vancouver air, with dispensary line-ups larger than usual. The government of Canada is clearly putting light on the recreational use of cannabis, steering from touching on the medicinal side of the plant, hopefully just for the time being. When calling into the government’s online store call centre with questions about cannabis, in regards to health and ailments, you will most likely be given vague information that steers clear of offering health advice, and lacks the resources to direct you to said health advice. The Health Canada born Medicinal Cannabis program still remains, but it appears the legalization and sudden social acceptance of cannabis has further embedded medicinal programing: making light of British Columbian stoner culture, while leaving medicinal patients in the dark.

Despite the newfound acceptance of the plant, there seems to be much confusion over the laws and regulations surrounding. Here are some crucial things you should know about cannabis legalization in Canada:

Who is eligible?
You must be 19 years or older to buy, use, possess, and grow non-medical cannabis.
Exemptions are made to those with medical cannabis permits.

Where is cannabis sold, and how do I know the cannabis I am purchasing is legal?
Cannabis will be sold exclusively at government-run stores, licensed private retailers, and the B.C. government’s online store. While prior to legalization, dispensaries were monitored by their respective police and municipal forces, licensed private retailers will now be both monitored and licenced by the Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch. Non-medical cannabis is to carry an excise stand on its packaging, similar to the stamp found on tobacco: the excise stamp acts as verification that the product is from both a licenced grower and retailer, while assuring the correct tax has been paid. All cannabis products without this excise stamp are not legal. Medical cannabis purchasers will continue to purchase through the government.

How much can I carry and grow?
Adults 19+ are permitted to carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis in a public place, or your own home. Connective, you may not grow more than the allotted 1,000 grams; projections should be based on the expected yield from four cannabis plants (limmit four plants per-household). Exemptions are made for medical cannabis permit holders.

Where can I use cannabis?
Public use laws follow suit of tobacco smoking laws, excluding smoking in communal spaces such as playgrounds and sports fields. Cannabis users are prohibited from smoking within six metres of air intakes, windows, and doors. While smoking tobacco is illegal in most indoor facilities, smoking cannabis in hotel rooms for example, is legal, should the hotel permit it. Exemptions are made for medical cannabis permit holders. Like alcohol and other impairing substances, it is illegal to drive while high; there has been no differentiation yet made, in regards to whether the consumption of isolated CBD based cannabis products can be legally consumed prior to driving. Consumption in or on private property is fully legal, however, renters must abide by landlords, strata council rules.

While it is clear that the focus of legalization and cannabis legislation has been on non-medical cannabis, medical cannabis, and the medical cannabis program is still available to those with the proper corresponding ailments. Carriers of medical cannabis permits will still be governed by many of the prospective laws set prior to legalization; there are exemptions for use of Health Canada authorized medical cannabis on school property and on intercity busses, trains, and boats as long as specific requirements are met. Specific details of Health Canada authorized medical cannabis law can be found in the updated Order in Council No. 542, updated this October; although they are not written in layman’s terms, providing as information inaccessible to the general public, without the presence of a law professional, or persons familiar with reading legislative amendments.

If the first few weeks of cannabis legalization have told us anything, it’s that British Columbians appear to have a greater trust or allegiance to the existing ecosystem of cannabis; a system that has been built on grassroots and not a glass ceiling, encompassing both the recreational and medicinal attributes of cannabis. We can only hope the government will follow suit, providing accessible information to Canadians, and products that serve a wide range of consumers.
For more information on cannabis legislation, law, and the corresponding amendments, visit;
cannabis.gov.bc.ca

By Emily Corley

VANCOUVER – Why I Design is an annual one-night exploratory extravaganza presented by the Museum of Vancouver. Simply put: “Local designers talk with you about what they do and why they’re doing it in Vancouver.”

Designers of everything from sustainable fashion to workplace safety will discuss the projects they’re working on and their practical impact on the city we live in. On November 3, over two dozen designers will showcase their work and invite open discussion with the public about how their creative endeavours have an impact on our day-to-day lives.

Why I Design highlights the incredible wealth of creative talent in Vancouver and celebrates the diverse inspirations and outcomes for artistic output in the modern world. Many of the participating designers are investigating the contribution that thoughtful, sustainable design can have on social and community spaces.

Contributors include Yael Stav of Invivo Design, whose projects champion urban sustainability and environmentally friendly construction. Luugigyoo Patrick Reid Stewart, who will also speak at the event, is an architect focusing on Indigenous design. His past projects include a resource centre and cultural buildings that give back to the environments and communities they serve.

The event also spotlights designers who take their inspiration from around the world. Cydney Eva from PatternNation will be discussing her collaboration with South African designer Costa Besta and demonstrating how socially conscious art can be “an act of decolonization.”

The Museum of Vancouver has long been an advocate for cutting-edge local design and they are excited to be hosting Why I Design for another year. Marketing and Communications Manager Lorenzo Schober says, “Why I Design is undoubtedly one of our most popular and well-attended events. It’s an event that encourages dialogue between local designers and the public at large. This year we are excited to feature designers that focus on sustainability, social responsibility, and ecological consciousness to centre around a theme of creating these types of spaces within their communities.”

by Leah Siegel

Photo by Emily Cooper

VANCOUVER – It’s almost amusing – in a sad, quaint sort of way – how H.G. Wells once called the First World War “the war to end war.” The conflict that spanned from 1914 until 1918 is often overlooked in favour of its flashier successor, a world war better suited to Hollywood’s cinematic tastes. However, Heather Redfern, Executive Director of the Cultch, knew as early as 2015 that she wanted to do something to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Armistice.

“It feels so much like we’re in a place in the world right now where we’re seeing the same kind of oligarchism, you know, grandiose kinds of dictators and despots –including in the United States,” she says over the phone. The parallels between now and then inspired her to launch the upcoming Ceasefire Series, a set of three plays focused on three different wars.

The series opens with The Believers Are But Brothers, a “claustrophobic” (as Redfern puts it) portrayal of modern warfare where the fighting takes place in the trenches of Facebook and Twitter. The play takes a close look at young men in particular, and their inclination to extremism when feelings of powerlessness intersect with a sense of entitlement.

“I think there’s a bold statement to be made by putting that in a war series,” Redfern says. “The internet is a tool of war now. You know, war has gone beyond being about dropping bombs on people.”

From there, we time travel back a hundred years to a field hospital. Despite its historic setting, SmallWaR, like The Believers, relies heavily on technology. Through use of holograms, performer Valentijn Dhaenens embodies several different characters – a wounded soldier, for instance, and a nurse – dealing with the trauma of war. “It’s a testament to the ordinary,” states Redfern. No focus on aristocracy here, nor glorious tales of battle between good and evil.

The series ends with Three Winters, a new piece commissioned by the Cultch and based upon the experiences of writer-director Amiel Gladstone’s grandfather in a Japanese POW camp. As a means of survival, soldiers (all played by female actors) turn to Shakespeare. “It’s not at all like your usual war story,” Redfern says. It’s “about the redemption soldiers found in that camp by doing theatre and making plays together.”

For Redfern, this redemption is what makes theatre in particular so crucial.

“It is so important to learn from history,” she says, “and one of the things we can do as a performing arts organization is tell the stories of the past so that people don’t have to keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.” With a laugh, she admits, “It’s trying to do a lot with three shows.”

by The Baddest Bitch, Peach Cobblah, East Van’s Cheapest Date

October 20. It’s a vital day in this city. Not just because my homo hip-hop party, Hustla, will be happening at The Emerald, though that can be where you come celebrate once you’ve done your job as a Vancouverite. Your job isn’t going to work, paying your terrifyingly high rent bill, then getting black out drunk to cope. I’m not saying that’s not what you do, you do you however you want to do it, but the job I’m talking about involves showing up at a polling station and giving yourself the time to read through all the candidates and vote.

You don’t want to rush this process or you’re going to find yourself standing in line getting sweaty and antsy because you’re going to be late for a date, or a meeting, or picking up your kids. Or because the liquor store is going to close. Plan ahead! Like a good meal, this can’t be rushed. In this year’s election we have a whopping 159 candidates vying for 27 elected positions. This requires a bit of work, but we’re Vancouverites, we know how to work. God knows, we have enough jobs to help support our lavish West Coast lifestyle (mmmm $11 avocado toast), so we are well-versed in a bit of elbow grease. Don’t let the numbers deter you: on October 20, you will sift through the 21 mayoral candidates, 71 city council candidates, 33 parks board candidates and (perhaps most importantly, in my humble opinion) 34 school board trustee candidates. So make decisions that will shape our Vancouver today, and the Vancouver of the next generation. Maybe I’ve gone soft because this sweaty monstrosity of a drag queen became a dad in January, but the kind of future we start shaping now is at the forefront of my wig, uh, I mean mind.

So how do you prepare? How do you figure out which of these names (in random order this year, btw, not alphabetical, so make sure you really read through) most align with your own politics? Better still: have you taken the time to figure out what matters to you about this city? It’s not a test, you won’t fail. There isn’t a wrong answer. Like if you love partying on the weekend, maybe you’re concerned about diminishing gathering spaces and the limitations on liquor licenses for community events. That feels like a very NoFunCity concern. Or if you like hanging out at the beach, then maybe you’re concerned about protecting green spaces. What do you like about life here, and how do you want to preserve that or shift something to make the city more accessible or eventful or safe or sustainable. Or all of the above.

Step One: Figure out what matters to you.

Step Two: Spend some time on the Election 2018 page of City of Vancouver’s website (https://vancouver.ca/your-government/2018-election.aspx) to see each candidate and whose politics and priorities align with your own, recently discovered civic viewpoints. The website lists their 3 top priorities very clearly as well as their platform and a bio.

Step Three: Some of these candidates are connected to civic parties that have a shared platform and you can consult those parties’ websites for a more detailed understanding of how those candidates could work together to help shift our city for the better.

Step Four: I know a lot of you don’t have kids in your lives, however I’m not kidding when I talk about how important voting for School Board Trustees is. Because this is how we shape the future of our city. So don’t skip that category because the younger generation of changemakers need vibrant and safe environments in which to thrive and grow into our future leaders and voters. Particular shout out to the huge importance of making schools inclusive and safe for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI). It’s 2018 and I can’t take seriously any candidate that is trying to prevent kids from being safe in their own schools. Fun fact: this year the city is running an election for kids! As a means to get them into the spirit of elections, kids under 18 can fill out a ballot and vote on three questions about their city and the role they want to play in it! Bring democracy to the children!

Step Five: Make it fun! Voting is serious business, but don’t let it feel like a chore. Celebrate that you’re doing something for your city and one another. Organize a voting party – you can all go to the polling station together and then sip bubbles and talk about the sophisticated civic-minded allstar you are.

In fact, come join me at the Emerald and we will raise a glass together and celebrate the fact that whether we agree on everything or not, regardless of who we voted for, we used the power of our voice. Something not everyone on this planet has. So let’s not be dicks who take it for granted and just say “oh, shit, was that today?” or “I just want to finish the new season of Ozark instead.”

by Yasmine Shemesh

photo by Hernan Rodriguez

It’s Thanksgiving in Canada and, even though the American holiday isn’t until next month, Lou Ferrigno, speaking over the telephone from Santa Monica, is sharing what he’s most thankful for. This year, it’s fitness, travel, his work as a sheriff deputy in Los Angeles County, the opportunity to make more movies, and his family.

Of course, Ferrigno is best known for portraying the title character in the 1970s TV series the Incredible Hulk, as well as being one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time. But as he speaks — graciously, with warmth and humility — about the journey that both his life and work continues to take him on to this day, gratitude is the thing that most notably radiates from him constantly, and not just in spirit of the holiday.

Ferrigno lost 70-80% of his hearing shortly after he was born. Growing up in Brooklyn, he was bullied as he dealt with navigating through loss of his hearing and mastering his speech. He found a wealth of strength and comfort in comic books —specifically, Superman and the Hulk. “I would watch Superman, the TV series, when I came home from school,” Ferrigno remembers. “So, that gave me a lot of confidence to take action. I used to read a lot of Hulk comics at the same time, because I was obsessed with power. In my imagination, I was a real life Walter Mitty. I liked to read these comics, fantasizing myself being powerful, fighting crime, and protecting life or property; fighting for myself. Gotta be big, strong, and powerful, to not be picked on anymore — because I was ridiculed when I was a kid. They used to call me names. They didn’t think I’d amount to anything. So, I was bullied a lot.”

The powerful physiques of those characters were also how Ferrigno first discovered bodybuilding. “I knew that was my platform to survive,” he says. “Growing up in a rough neighbourhood back in the ‘50s, in Brooklyn — I had to fight my own battles. I had to get myself self-confidence. I received a lot of admiration and respect from bodybuilding; I knew that would take me somewhere.”

In fact, Ferrigno was training for — and slated to win — the 1977 Mr. Olympia when he was cast as the Hulk for the TV series that same year. He was admittedly nervous, at first, because other recent series based on comic book characters had failed: the Amazing Spider-Man, for example, was just cancelled after 13 episodes. Ferrigno hoped that the pilot would get at least picked up as a series.

“So, I gave it everything I could, because I worked very hard on the show,” he says. “I remember I had a great fear of that, if people would like the show, but then when it got to air, it took over the country, the world, by storm, and it gave me a great feeling because I knew I had made the right decision — because my whole life I wanted to play this character.”

It was his first time on camera, too, apart from when he did Pumping Iron — the documentary that centered around the rivalry between Ferrigno and Arnold Schwarzenegger as they prepared for the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions. But Ferrigno was innate. It was a role that was truly meant for him and one that, certainly, felt destined. “It came naturally to follow the character,” he says. “They let me just play the character because it came naturally for me. I was a big fan of the Hulk. I remember we were filming over the summer and the heat was very intense, but I just knew. I said to myself, I kept believing that the show was going to be a hit.” Fond memories of those early days are still vivid. “I remember I had a great time, and I made a lot of good friends — especially when I had the chance to spend time with Bill Bixby, who was a veteran actor, one of my favourite actors.”

Ferrigno will be in Vancouver for the FAN EXPO convention from October 12-14. Along with having an affinity for the city from filming the last two Hulk movies here, he enjoys the convention experience tremendously because he gets to meet fans that have longstanding and deep connections to both him and the Hulk. “I love meeting with the fans, connecting with them, because they’re the ones who have supported me all these years, especially three generations of Hulk fans,” Ferrigno says. “I want to put a smile on people’s faces. It just gives me a great feeling — gratification —when I meet the fans.”

Life has come full circle for Ferrigno, as someone who, as a young boy, once found refuge in the power of the green behemoth. Now, Ferrigno has become that superhero for others. “It feels good because I give them a lot of hope,” he says. “I have a lot of people who come to these conventions, sometimes they have disability, sometimes they have insecurity, they want a pat on their back, and they want to feel like they’re doing the right thing for their life. When I was a child, I never had anything like this. I would have given anything to go to a convention to meet [my heroes], knowing that I’m okay. That’s something I believe in. I relive my childhood when I meet these people. Especially the stories: they converse with me how much it’s affected their lives, watching the show.”

When asked if he has words of wisdom for anyone who is overcoming adversity, Ferrigno’s gentle tone becomes impassioned. It’s about finding power within.

“I’d tell them to maximize their personal power, because every one of us is handicapped in one way or another,” he says. “Maximizing your personal power. Embrace your passions. If you’re passionate about something, embrace it. Do not listen to the naysayers, only believe in yourself, only compete with yourself — because when you compete with others, you’re going to lose.”

FAN EXPO VANCOUVER runs from October 12-14 at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

By Carlos Oen

Imagine that after playing for two years on Vancouver’s best stages you’ve just been signed by a major record company with plans to take you touring across Canada. Now trade your axe for a keg of cold beer and your tom-toms for tasty six-pack of crafted lager, for you are in Good Company now.

It all started at the Cobalt, one of Vancouver´s favourite bars (currently under undergoing upgrades). From years of experience behind the bar, entrepreneurial Patryk Drozd realized live music lovers and bar patrons alike wanted an affordable beer. Two years ago, all customers could get in the $4.50 range was a boring, generic and industrial can.

Drozd and his partner Michael Kiraly, a biology professor at Capilano University, decided to do something about it. Good Company Lager was born with a specific mission — Putting cans in hands.

“What we wanted to do is create a local craft value brand that we could introduce to the market and support the local community,” said Drozd. “We wanted a brand that was reflective of what we represent in the community. What that wanted to be is a local-draft-beer alternative to what doesn´t exist in Canada.”

Vancouverites are known for supporting local brands, and this one started by supporting local music bands and artists. A virtuous cycle was formed and Good Company Lager became a success.

Little did Drozd and Kiraly knew they were being watched by one of North America´s most important wine and spirits distributor – Southern Glazer´s Wine & Spirits.
A year-and-a-half after the kickoff, the distributors of brands such as Grey Goose, Bacardi, Bombay Sapphire and Patron contacted Drozd. They wanted a beer in their Canadian portfolio. The conversations resulted in a signed deal to distribute Vancouver´s Good Company Lager across Canada. These local guys went national.

“Suddenly this fun little project turned into something really serious,” said Drozd. “We were just a little company with two guys and a truck. Just slinging beer. All of a sudden we are getting to that level now. It’s pretty interesting.”

The first stage is to distribute Good Company Lager in B.C. and Alberta. It’s all part of a three year project to take it across Canada. Drozd is calm and keeps his feet on the ground, telling himself he will believe it when he sees it.

Hard work and vision have helped Drozd to co-own the Cobalt, the Boxcar and the American. These are Main Street´s Holy Trinity of bars. He sees much of his success coming from supporting the community. When Good Company Lager came out, many of the communities that Drozd has helped turned around and gave their support.

“People are excited about Vancouver. People are very excited about things from Vancouver. And people want to support people that do things in Vancouver. There is a growing support network for local stuff. For a long time Vancouver never had that,” said Drozd.

It is time to raise the pint high, wishing success to this fermented, yeasty, and local band. Cheers!

By Graeme Wiggins

Photo by Rebecca Blissett

VANCOUVER – Different kinds of comedians bomb differently. If you’re a one-liner, punchline kind of comedian, recovering from a failed joke is pretty straightforward: you move on to the next one. They might just not like your style and that might not work either, but your chances are easier. If you come from the line of comedians that are more storytelling in concept, if a bit isn’t working, recovery can be much tougher. Vancouver comedian Chris Griffin belongs to the latter camp and recognizes this difficulty, but has developed a sense of how to succeed.

“I just did a show a couple of weeks ago at a senior’s home at noon. Average age: 84,” he says. “I couldn’t get anything. Half of them weren’t even awake. It sucks the life out of you, doing two minutes of set up and then you ditch the joke so that’s now three minutes where nobody has laughed. It’s brutal. You learn to get out of that. And you learn to have the confidence to get out of that. Like, look, we’ll get through this and you’ll laugh. You exude that and they’ll buy it.”

There’s a sort of chicken-or-the-egg paradox to storytelling comedians. Are they people who end up in situations that allow for funny stories to turn into comedy, or are they comedians who actively seek out experiences that they can turn into comedy? For Griffin, it’s a bit of both.

“I think the stories come first,” he says. “But I also have the type of personality where you chase them. I think, as you do comedy and get years into it, you really develop a comedy brain. It’s always in the back of your mind – an eye for what’s funny. So when a situation presents itself that’s going to be crazy or people want to go do something that’s nuts, I’ll always be all in.”

This sense of chasing stories, especially the kind Griffin traffics in, doesn’t come without a cost: “For my own well-being, in the last year my friends had a bit of an intervention where ‘you have to tone down’ putting yourself in crazy situations.”

Griffin is recording material this October for a possible new special. It should showcase where he’s come since his last one, which was recorded back when he lived in Calgary. “This is sort of the culmination of the years in Vancouver,” he says. “I think I’ve grown as a comic since then. I’m excited. I’ve toured non-stop until now. I feel the hour is as ready as it will be.”

Ideally the situation will be a little better than the circumstances surrounding his last recording. He recounts, “The flood happened, and it flooded the theatre, and I had to postpone it into mid-summer, which is the worst because Calgary has two months of no snow. I still managed to get a lot of people out.”

With this recording comes a sense that he’ll have moved to a new point in his career, and to carry on progressing: “It’ll be nice to put this material to bed officially. I’ve forced myself the last six weeks to not write and just polish. And then it’s back to the grind and write a new hour, or try a one man show or something different. It’s freeing and terrifying. To start fresh like what I did when I came to Vancouver.”

By Joey Lopez

VANCOUVER – Tee Krispel, founder of FLEURS Tea, is stuck playing the waiting game as uncertainty keeps small business owners in the clouds, regardless of it being “high times” for the cannabis industry. In recent years, the medical benefits of cannabis have been the launch pad of legalization around the world. Canada’s perspective switch from the war on drugs, to the realization of medicinal, industrial and economic benefits has rendered great positivity for the industry. Cannabis has finally had the chance to expand in an array of forms, including CBD, holistic herbs and tea. Enter FLEURS Tea.

“I used the ‘WOKE’ blend throughout college to help with studying. I lose focus really easily and it completely helped me with retention and focus,” says Krispil about her yerba maté and medicinal herb infused tea product that is designed to give you a healthy boost of energy. “It was then that I started incorporating herbs into my daily regime. The power of herbs is wild and I want to help bridge the gap between herbalism and cannabis.” Krispil started FLEURS as a passion project on 4/20 of 2017, unknowing what it would become. Using a Point Grey dispensary known as The Wealth Shop as a testing platform for the product, FLEURS started off slowly as customers grew a liking to its enticing branding and packaging. A few months later, Krispil found her passion had blown up into a full-fledged business and FLEURS was suddenly in demand. “I took a look a look at the saturation and noticed where the gap in the market was. Thankfully that gap also aligned with my passion for alternative healing. There was nothing like what I wanted to build in terms of CBD products. I couldn’t find anything else that incorporated the healing benefits of herbs,” says Krispil.

With legalization right around the corner, FLEURS Tea and other products like it will become accessible to those who need it. However, the obstacles of creating such a product remain fierce. “I’m happy people will have access to their medicine. That’s one positive of legalization. It will become more widely accepted and will be considered a part of modern medicine. The market is up in the air and I’m just playing the waiting game, but legalization will make it more difficult for small businesses like mine. We’ll be competing against big corporations with lots of money and resources. I like to think it’ll roll out like alcohol. There’s Budweiser or Corona and then there’s your local brewery. We will be your local brewery of CBD products.”

Check out FLEURS Tea and everything they have to offer at www.fleurstea.com

By Joey Lopez

Owner Rod Moore is going to serve you up a fright to remember. Photo by Jamila Pomeroy

VANCOUVER – Walking through the large door and stepping into the Dark Manor Inn is like travelling back in time. The wallpaper is reminiscent of Crimson Peak or The House on Haunted Hill with old portraits of people long dead that look as if their souls occupy the frames themselves, their eyes following your every movement between bookshelves of ancient tomes, a stair case that leads nowhere and a gilded throne that once sat the late founders of the Dark Manor.

“There was a husband and wife in the late 1800s who ran the Dark Manor Inn. The story is that she might have poisoned him with his favourite whiskey cocktail. Their pictures are over there on the wall,” says Rod Moore, owner of the Dark Manor Inn, pointing to the wall across from him. “That’s the backstory and the whiskey cocktail will be served on our menu, if you’re brave enough to drink it. I want this to be a completely immersive experience for people who come in here. It’s an escape and we want them constantly looking around and seeing new, scary things. There’s going to be something new in here all the time.”

When you want to escape the mundane and the mainstream, where do you want to go? Moore wants the Dark Manor Inn to be the place you run to when you want to experience something you can’t find anywhere else. Each book on the shelf was hand picked by Moore himself, each one older than the last, trying to find the perfect piece to add to the creepy atmosphere. The paintings on the walls are of real people, some nearly 200 years old. The real aspects of the Dark Manor Inn could make one believe the hands that touched the spines of those books so long-ago may be the very same hovering over your shoulders, creating that chill running down your spine as you sit inside this haunted bar.

“We want this to be super cool and immersive. I even have hundreds of different pieces of music for this place. We have the theme from the haunted mansion ride. Now, you couldn’t listen to Disney music all night or else people will be offing themselves for real, but I found a whole genre of haunted, spooky instrumentals. The theme from Halloween will play alongside everything John Carpenter ever wrote. Vincent Price doing his blurb from ‘Thriller’ will be playing over tapa music. It’s going to be awesome.”

Everything in the Dark Manor Inn lends itself to a haunted history and the potential for a run-in with a ghost or two. Be careful of what you touch, you don’t know what kind of things you might bring home with you.

As for those stairs that lead nowhere? “That’s grandma’s attic. She might still be up there,” he says.” Her picture is on the wall, staring up at the wife probably wondering what the hell she’s doing

The Dark Manor Inn will be open in time for Halloween. Grab yourself a dubious whiskey cocktail and experience all the dark and terrific horrors it has to offer.

By Karina Espinosa

Photo courtesy of SCAD

When Rihanna arrived at the 2015 Met Gala dressed in a flowing, silken, fur-lined cape, her outfit was the most talked about moment of the night. The 16-foot canary yellow train became the target of several memes, even earning comparisons to Big Bird’s feather plume. But the elaborate gown did more than set off a social media firestorm. It introduced the world to the brilliant couturière behind the creation: Guo Pei. A year later, the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture invited Pei to present at Paris Fashion Week – the first Chinese designer bestowed the honour.

Rihanna’s star power certainly helped, but Pei soon garnered worldwide acclaim for her exquisite designs and steadfast commitment to her craft (the gown weighed over 50 pounds and took 50,000 hours to make). Inspired by both traditional Chinese garments and modern elements, her over-the-top designs transcend ornate and push the limits of contemporary fashion.

On October 13, an exhibition entitled Guo Pei: Couture Beyond will make its Canadian debut at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It is the first time that the gallery will be curating a collection devoted to fashion, and viewers will get the chance to appreciate the depth, detail, and sheer scale of Pei’s artistry in person. The exhibition will showcase 43 haute couture pieces from the Beijing-based designer, including the voluminous, gilded gown worn by Rihanna. For Diana Freundl, the gallery’s associate curator of Asian art, to view Pei’s work as mere articles of clothing is to overlook the history that each piece represents.

“The Vancouver Art Gallery has always been committed to representing a diverse history of visual culture. Fashion is an important area of study because it combines aspects of visual art, popular culture, and design,” Freundl notes. “For this exhibition, it really is a comprehensive overview of [Pei’s] work and her evolution as a designer. There are pieces from 2002 all the way to 2017, and each of those pieces has its own distinct story.”

Guo Pei: Couture Beyond is a chance for Canadian audiences to familiarize themselves with Chinese history, culture, and tradition through fashion. The handcrafted process, especially involving the imperial embroidery techniques, revives a traditional Chinese art that was suppressed during China’s Cultural Revolution.

“Her designs are about reclaiming the aesthetic and the craftsmanship that have been in danger of being forgotten,” says Freundl of Pei.

From a technical standpoint, Pei’s designs are architectural marvels. Her dresses and skirts often take years to complete by a team of more than 100 artisans. Elaborate layers of cascading fabrics, intricate embroideries, and iridescent, bejeweled hems are some of the elements that come together in elegant formation.

The scope of the exhibit will appeal to museumgoers of all levels of interest, from fashion obsessives to art enthusiasts. According to Freundl, what makes the exhibit so accessible is its universal appeal: “It’s not just for those that are interested in fashion, but also those that are interested in traditional Chinese decorative crafts and aesthetics and contemporary design.”

Art and fashion coalesce, and the cultural exchanges between the East and the West come to light. The result is a diverse collection presented in a visually stunning format.

“Guo Pei’s work speaks to China’s cultural history, in particular the Qing dynasty, but it also speaks to contemporary design and more avant-garde silhouettes,” Freundl says. “I think it’s the perfect first fashion exhibition for the Vancouver Art Gallery. In many ways, Guo is a global artist.”

Guo Pei: Couture Beyond runs from October 13, 2018 – January 20, 2019 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Ahead of the exhibit’s debut, Guo Pei and Bronwyn Cosgrave in Conversation will take place on October 9.

By Leah Siegel

Theatre lovers of Vancouver, rejoice! Between the shorter days and the return of the rain, we no longer have to feign enthusiasm for the outdoors. This October, we travel back and forth in time, explore the rust belt, and talk about sex. In the immortal words of Marvin Gaye, “Let’s get it on.”

Incognito Mode: A Play About Porn Studio 58 September 27-October 14
Pornhub was founded a little over ten years ago, and since then its influence has swelled. Enlarged. Erm, hardened. In 2017, it had 81 million visits per day. What does it mean to have grown up with the internet and such easy access to porn, and what does it entail for the future?
Director Chelsea Haberlin says she was drawn to the project because of the taboo of pornography. “I am sure this show will spark conversation,” she says. “This is the kind of show that people will love or hate but no one will feel indifferent.” The folks over at Neworld Theatre and Langara’s Studio 58 have been workshopping this original drama since last spring, so there’s bound to be an interesting take on it. Honestly, though: when is porn not interesting?

A Vancouver GuldastaThe Cultch October 2-21
Director and playwright Paneet Singh wanted to explore the idea of politicizing trauma in his new play put on in collaboration with SACHA. In A Vancouver Guldasta, or A Vancouver Bouquet, we follow a local Punjabi family living in the 1980s, with a Vietnamese refugee family residing in their basement. From across the world they watch the unfolding of “Operation Bluestar,” India’s armed invasion of the Sikh’s sacred Golden Temple, and must navigate transnational political, religious, and cultural turmoil. However, this story is ultimately about community: “Sprinkled among many of the enclaves in Vancouver are countless inter-cultural stories that exist because of the way we live here,” Singh says over a Facebook message, and “what results is a genuine bouquet of human experience.” He adds, “I am hoping that audiences will really allow themselves to revel in a truly Vancouver experience, and leave feeling like they’re taken part in a conversation which they otherwise would never have had the privilege to be a part of.”

A Brief History of Human ExtinctionThe Cultch October 10-20
It’s 2178, and an insidious fungal plague (and no, that’s not a nickname for Donald Trump,) has effectively made it impossible for life to continue on Earth. The last man, woman, and otter have found safety in some science-lab-thingamjig that will theoretically transport them to a different planet. At least, that’s the plan. Things get complicated when they hear something moving outside of the lab, and it sounds like it wants in. If you watched Interstellar and thought it could have been improved by an otter puppet (an odd, but understandable opinion), you’re in luck.

SweatArtsclub October 18-November 18
American playwright Lynn Nottage won the Pulitzer in 2017 for Sweat, a play that has been hailed by The New Yorker as “the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era.” In it, we travel to Reading, Pennsylvania, a mid-size city with one of the highest poverty rates in the states. (It is also, unrelatedly, the birthplace of Taylor Swift.) In the year 2000, factory workers Tracey, Jessie, and Cynthia find their friendship weakened when Cynthia (who is African-American) is promoted, while their own jobs are threatened by outsourcing. In their envy, Tracey and Jessie claim there’s unfair affirmative action at work behind Cynthia’s upward mobility, and this sets the scene for a racial tension that divides the town for years to come. Timely, no?

By Leah Siegel

Book of Mormon. Photo by Joan Marcus

It takes chutzpah to satirize an established religion like The Book of Mormon does. Judging by the amount of laughter heard in the Queen Elizabeth on opening night, the musical didn’t have much converting to do.

The play follows Elder Price and Elder Cunningham as they set out on assignment to rural Uganda in hopes of proselytizing. For Elder Price, this is a big let-down: he’d been crossing his fingers to be sent to Orlando after a falling in love with Disneyworld on a memorable family trip. Elder Cunningham, meanwhile, couldn’t be more pleased to be paired up with Price and takes up the role of his sidekick with gusto. Upon arrival, the two immediately realize they’re in over their heads as the villagers face much more serious issues and have no interest in religion. Indeed, the motto the village lives by is a vulgar dismissal of god.

Thanks to the irreverent humour of South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and the comedic musical chops of Broadway veteran (and Frozen co-creator) Robert Lopez, The Book of Mormon is full of noteworthy moments worth the price of admission. I will fondly remember the utterly ridiculous optics of very white men, clad in all white outfits, unironically singing, “We are Africa.” A glitzy tap dance to “Turn It Off,” a song about repressing one’s feelings, also stands out.

What steals the show, though, is the performance of the two leads. Kevin Clay’s Elder Price is a petulant, precocious young man who thinks he will change the world at 19. Clay capably earns both the audience’s scorn, and later sympathy — and dang, can he sing. Conner Peirson’s Elder Cunningham, in contrast, is a bumbling but well-intentioned compulsive liar. His embodiment of the character, from the flinging up of hands in excitement to the surprisingly spry kicks he delivers in his choreography add an endearing, energized earnestness to the play. It’s this earnestness that keeps The Book of Mormon from veering too far into the cynical.

There are moments when the jokes fall flat. One such line is a villager proclaiming, at multiple points throughout the show, that he has maggots in a certain area of his body (we’ll leave you to guess where specifically). Does this particular bit of information add anything to the story? No. Is it a smart joke? No. But it’s the type of South Park scatological humor that Parker and Stone made their brand. We’ll allow them this indulgence.

You can also fault the play (and many have) for its portrayal of the African villagers in general. It’s one thing to make light of Mormon missionaries, but the transition to the Ugandan village where primary concerns are AIDS, warfare and female circumcision is uncomfortable and smells vaguely like the tragedy porn that so often paints the continent in broad, one-dimensional strokes. Elder Cunningham’s inability to remember the name of the Ugandan female lead is also awkward. Is the joke that he’s culturally ignorant, or that her name is so foreign to Western ears?

However, it’s the concerns of these villagers that underscore the ineptitude of these young missionaries, and how out-of-touch a religion can be when imposed on others. What’s striking, then, is how The Book of Mormon concludes. For a musical that takes such a cynical look at organized religion, the ending is an almost heart-warming compromise.

The Book Of Mormon runs until Sept. 30 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.